Post containing the least interesting photo on this blog so far

'We're going to open our own bookshop in Wood Green. And this is going to be our story. We have the passion, the determination, and we also have a little bit of business acumen. With a little help, it might just work. It'll make for compelling reading whatever happens. We would love any advice, words of encouragement or money that you can spare, and we'll do our best to be as honest in this blog as possible.'

In August 2007, a Waterstone's in Wood Green closed down. Normally this wouldn't necessarily be a particular cause for complaint. However, if you worked there, loved books and knew that it was your local area's only bookshop, you might well have cause to be very upset indeed. That's what happened to Tim West and Simon Key, authors of the Wood Green Bookshop Blog.

Tim and Simon made the decision that they should try to open their own bookshop and that they should document their attempt to do this. The blog is a fascinating read, partly because of the docu-soap style interest that comes from reading about their plans progressing and partly because of the insights it provides into how book retail works. Equally though, it's written with great wit and never takes itself too seriously, whilst at the same time reflecting the fact that Tim and Simon clearly do have a genuine and heartfelt commitment to getting a book shop opened up in their local area.

One of their most recent entries lists the ways in which they have tried to get publicity for their cause. One of their methods was:

"Tell Chuggers (CH arity m UGGERS) "... Actually I don't have two minutes to discuss (insert cause here) But I do have twenty minutes or so to talk about my Bookshop..."". Another method was "Call up a radio phone-in with a spurious link to the subject being discussed. "..... Yes the war in Iran is a terrible thing. I was reading about it in the Big Green Bookshop... "".

Actually, to be honest, randomly selected quotes don't really do it justice. We wouldn't usually cover another blog but it's a great cause that deserves more attention. If you want to see what they're up against, check out the user comments at the bottom of this Telegraph article.